Christmas Greetings!

Wishing you all a blessed Christmas!

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Delightful Noche Buena additions

Two baked goods that make delightful Noche Buena additions: 

Brazo de Mercedes and Stollen bread.

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The birth of Jesus

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

                                                                                         Matthew 1:20-21 

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Photo Essay: Gearing up for the holiday festivities

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Going home for Christmas

For all those heading back home this Christmas, wishing you all a safe and pleasant journey.  May you all be filled with love and the wondrous joys of this holiday season.

And here's a lovely soundtrack to complete your journey back home:

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What I want for Christmas

Limited Edition Paul Smith for Leica X2 Camera

The Paul Smith for Leica collaboration brings together the technical excellence that is synonymous with Leica and the vivid visual appeal of Paul’s designs.

This limited edition of the Leica X2 has a bright orange top plate and an engraved light bulb image, hand drawn by Paul, reflecting the unusual pop-up flash on the top of the camera. The main body of the camera is wrapped in lovely racing green cowhide leather and the bottom plate of the camera is in contrasting vivid yellow. Each camera has its own unique limited edition serial number and comes with a great, expertly moulded camera protector and carrying strap in taupe leather.

Like other X2’s, the camera features an APS-C-format, professional CMOS image sensor with 16.5 megapixels (effective 16.2 MP). This is combined with a high-performance Leica Elmarit 24 mm f/2.8 ASPH lens which guarantees maximum image quality and superbly brilliant exposures. In other words, the camera is perfect for discerning photographers who want to take beautiful true-to-life images.

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Madelicious: Hot pandesal right off the oven

The manager told me that they churn out approximately 4,000 pieces of pandesal a day.

What’s unusual about this bake shop is that they constantly fill their pandesal bin with this hot-right-off-the-oven Pinoy favorite bread, because, as if non-stop, people buy them throughout the entire course of a 24-hour period.

What I often do is grab a seat in one of the three tables inside the shop and order two pieces at a time as each new batch of steaming hot pandesal are placed on the trays.  And they are incredibly delectable hot!  I would also bring along some cheese as filling.

Madelicious Bakeshop is located in Gallares Street in Tagbilaran.  And from what I learned online, Madelicious started operation in July 1998 in the City of Iligan by Mr. Marianito Dumadag Alemania and Mrs. Madel Penaso Alemania. They now have 44 branches and outlets all over Mindanao, Tagbilaran City, and in Metro Manila. 

Suggested read:

POC: Mga paboritong tinapay Pinoy

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Home really is where the heart is

Home really is where the heart is. And if your heart is centered on God, you are 'safe at home' everywhere.

In this day and time of continuing change, many people find themselves moving a great deal, and constantly having to try to make yet one more place "like home."

Yet home is a quality you bring to a place, not a quality that a place brings to you. Let yourself feel at home anywhere and people everywhere will welcome you always. And isn't a place where you are always welcome...'home'?

So feel good where you are right now. That's mastery.

                                                                              Neale Donald Walsch

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Pasalubong center In Bohol

Whenever asked by those visiting Bohol where the best place to grab some pasalubong for their family and friends back home, I always direct them to BQ Mall in Tagbilaran.

There they will find almost all the packaged delicacies the province of Bohol is known for, including various versions of kalamay.  Also, if buying in bulk, the store will neatly pack them in sturdy cartons to survive the trip back home.

There is also local lechon available per kilo that you can buy for awaiting family members.

Taxi fare from BQ Mall back to any resort hotel in Alona Beach in Panglao Island usually costs P500.00

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Word was made flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

He was with God in the beginning. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, 

who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

                                                              John 1:1-2, 14

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White Bread is "dead" bread

I received this information as a forwarded message in my email.  I am not completely certain if the information being claimed is actually true or not, but I’m sharing it with my readers anyway:

Quote

The Swiss government has been aware of the dangers of eating white bread for decades and in order to get its populace to stop eating it, Switzerland has placed a tax on the purchase of white bread. The tax money is given to bakers to reduce the price of whole wheat bread to encourage people to switch.

The Canadian government passed a law prohibiting the “enrichment” of white bread with synthetic vitamins. Bread must contain the original vitamins found in the grain, not imitations.

Essentially, white bread is “dead” bread. Frequently, consumers are not told the truth about this and so called “enriched” flour.

Why is the color of white bread so white when the flour taken from wheat is not?

It’s because the flour used to make white bread is chemically bleached just like you bleach your clothes. When you are eating white bread, you are also eating residual chemical bleach. Flour mills use different chemical bleaches, all of which are pretty bad. Here are a few of them: oxide of nitrogen, chlorine, chloride, nitrosyl and benzoyl peroxide mixed with various chemical salts.

One bleaching agent, chloride oxide, combined with whatever proteins are still left in the flour, produces alloxan. Alloxon is a poison and has been used to produce diabetes in laboratory animals. Chlorine oxide destroys the vital wheat germ oil. It will also shorten the

flour’s shelf life.

Good Nutrition: You Won’t Find It In White Bread

In the process of making flour white, half of the good unsaturated fatty acids, that are high in food value, are lost in the milling process alone, and virtually all the vitamin E is lost with the removal of wheat germ and bran. As a result, the remaining flour in the white bread you buy, contains only poor quality proteins and fattening starch.

But that is not the whole story as to the loss of nutrients. About 50% of all calcium, 70% of phosphorus, 80% iron, 98% magnesium, 75% manganese, 50% potassium, and 65% of copper is destroyed. If that is not bad enough, about 80% thiamin, 60% of riboflavin, 75% of niacin,

50% of pantothenic acid, and about 50% of Pyridoxine is also lost.

Scientific Study Has Confirmed What The Swiss Have Known For Years

These horrific numbers are the results of a study run by the University of California, College of Agriculture.

It is obvious, from what we have learned, that white bread should beavoided. Whole wheat, rye, and grain breads made with whole wheat flour is a better way.

It is a good idea to always read the labels and never buy foods that contain artificial flavors, colors, bleached flour, preservatives, hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils.

Unquote

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Human body hosts about 10,000 germ species

Scientists of the Human Microbiome Project had calculated that healthy people share their bodies with with as much as 10,000 species of microbes.

This is old news, I know, but perhaps, still worth reposting.  So, read on.

Virtually everybody harbors low levels of some harmful types of bacteria, pathogens that are known for causing specific infections. But when a person is healthy those bugs simply quietly coexist with benign or helpful microbes, perhaps kept in check by them.

The next step is to explore what doctors really want to know: Why do the bad bugs harm some people and not others? What changes a person's microbial zoo that puts them at risk for diseases ranging from infections to irritable bowel syndrome to psoriasis?

Already the findings are reshaping scientists' views of how people stay healthy, or not.

"This is a whole new way of looking at human biology and human disease, and it's awe-inspiring," said Dr. Phillip Tarr of Washington University at St. Louis, one of the lead researchers in the $173 million project, funded by the National Institutes of Health.

"These bacteria are not passengers," Tarr stressed. "They are metabolically active. As a community, we now have to reckon with them like we have to reckon with the ecosystem in a forest or a body of water."

And like environmental ecosystems, your microbial makeup varies widely by body part. Your skin could be like a rainforest, your intestines teeming with different species like an ocean.

Some 200 scientists from nearly 80 research institutions worked together for five years on this first-ever census to begin answering those questions by unraveling the DNA of these microbes, with some of the same methods used to decode human genetics. The results have been published in a series of reports in the journals Nature and the Public Library of Science.

Read more here.

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Giuseppe Pizzeria & Sicilian Roast

Giuseppe Pizzeria & Sicilian Roast is located along Panglao Island's main highway about 400 meters from Rona's corner that leads to Alona Beach.  

This is a fine Italian restaurant that serves delectable pizzas, pasta, and various authentic Sicilian dishes.  It is definitely one of the best restaurants in Bohol.

Quattro Formaggi (four cheese pizza) - P380

Spaghetti with red tomato sauce - P360

Trancia al Caffe (coffee ice cream with candied fruits) - P200

Special menu of the day (besides the usual menu)

The restaurant's brick oven where the pizzas are cooked wood-fired

Spacious dining area

Next level has various wine, pasta, various Italian foodstuffs for sale

No air conditioning but the place is airy and comfortable

Giuseppe's charges an additional 10% service charge for dine in patrons, 
as well as 10% service charge for all deliveries

For reservations and deliveries: 
landline: (038) 502-4255
Mobile: 0917-625-5582

Visit their website: Giuseppe Pizzeria & Sicilian Roast


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Café Aficionado: Nestlé instant coffee’s upcoming 75th anniversary

Next year, 2013, marks a milestone for Vevey-based food company Nestlé. It’s the 75th anniversary of its introduction of Nescafé instant.

True coffee aficionados who still brush off at the credibility of ‘instant’ may want to take another look. Nestlé’s painstaking development of the genre since 1938, supported by banking partner Credit Suisse, has created a range of beverages that has won consumer acceptance worldwide.

Nestlé’s long track record of coffee innovation was its 1986 launch of Nespresso, an ingenious system that turns capsules of ground coffee into instant – and very real – espressos. More recently, Nestlé’s Dolce Gusto coffee maker adds delicious mochas, lungos, latte macchiatos and frothy cappuccinos to the repertoire of restoratives you can easily make in your own kitchen or office.

Undoubtedly, Nestlé has reinvigorated the European coffee industry just as effectively as its products have refreshed time-pressed people, both at home and in the workplace.

Here in the Philippines, according to Business World Online, Nestlé is projecting to purchase as much as 204,000 metric tons of coffee beans straight from local growers by the year 2020 through Farmer Connect, a direct buying system that targets small farmers and small-scale intermediaries.

The statement quoted Hans Joehr, Nestlé’s Agriculture corporate head, as saying its Farmer Connect program is designed to make coffee farming "a more profitable livelihood."

"The Farmer Connect program is part of our solution to get high-quality coffee delivered to us long term -- beyond 2020," said Hans Joehr, Nestlé’s Agriculture corporate, citing the need to sustain supply by developing "the next coffee-producing generation."

"As local farmers bring in and sell their coffee directly to us through Farmer Connect, we make sure that they gain access to competitive prices for their locally produced coffee beans," he explained.

"In effect, what we are really trying to achieve through Farmer Connect is to make coffee an attractive crop to grow and make it a sustainable livelihood for our growers."

At the core of the Farmer Connect model are Nestlé Satellite Buying Stations, which are strategically situated at various points across the country.

These buying stations are where coffee farmers are able to sell their produce based on prevailing world market prices.

The same statement quoted Edith de Leon, senior vice-president and head of Corporate Affairs of Nestlé Philippines, Inc., as saying: "Nestlé endeavors to be as close to coffee farmers as possible. Through our direct buying stations strategically located across the country, small farmers can sell their produce directly to Nestlé and they are guaranteed of getting a buying price which is aligned with global market prices."

"It also enables farmers to get the payment within eight banking hours, thus the farmers can immediately benefit from the sale of their produce to Nestlé," she added.

Farmer Connect also trains farmers through Nestlé Better Farming Practices program, on increasing yields, controlling costs, improving crop quality, and mitigating impact of changing climate.

      
                                                                

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